-
Human Rights Singular-Plural: Translating Dalit Autobiography from Hindi
- Biography
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 33, Number 1, Winter 2010
- pp. 127-150
- 10.1353/bio.0.0151
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
I focus on the English translation of the first-person narrative Joothan by Dalit Hindi writer Omprakash Valmiki to ask how we read accounts from the "downtrodden" across languages and cultures. I argue that the Dalit atmakatha posits a different relationship between self and society than most autobiography in English, and so puts productive pressure on the generic expectations used to assess human rights.